Friday, December 12, 2014

I can’t breathe – or can I?

Fairly early on in the Ferguson
protest debacle, some wise person projected that the ultimate goal of all of
these protests would be to weaken America's many police
departments.It is becoming hip to march
and show support for what?It doesn't
matter at all to many of the demonstrators.Most of the people marching now are doing it because they want to be
part of something they can't even relate to.

It reminds me of 9-11 and the massive support that our
country gave our fallen and the subsequent number of yellow ribbons and flags
to show support for our troops.To
everyone who truly felt a part of it, it was wonderful – until it became
cliché-ish and ‘hip” to be patriotic.

A negative side-effect was that if you didn’t slap a
magnetic yellow ribbon (or one the hundreds of variations including a
camouflaged version) you were almost viewed as unpatriotic by some.“Hey doofus, where’s your yellow ribbon?”

“Hey mister, it’s a free country.Besides, I may or not support every cause
that comes down the pike, but whether I do or not is none of your danged
business.”

Concerning the alleged unjustified violence by police
against minority groups, I am sure some of the objection is justified, but all
the footage and evidence points to the “victim” resisting the police, or worse,
downright fighting the cops.I learned
possibly at the tender of age of whatever, that arguing with police will always
escalate into something negative for me.In fact, I think the current movement where people are holding their
hands over their heads is probably what should be done to deescalate a
confrontation with police and frankly, I find it almost humorous in its
simplicity.

Our city once had the reputation of being cop-heavy on
citizens, but I’ve lived here since 1974 and never had one single violent
experience with our police, that a few verbal exchanges didn’t solve the
problem.In one case in particular, I
drove my Jeep (not my current vehicle) out of my subdivision at 0330 with a cup
of coffee in my hand.I made a complete
stop at Massey Tompkins and took a right.

Instantly there was a cop right behind me with their lights flashing.Now mind you, it was 3:30am and the roads
were devoid of traffic and this cop almost caused me to drop my uppers AND
spill hot coffee in my lap.Of course I
was angry.When he walked up to my door,
I asked him why I was being pulled over.

“You failed to use your turn signal sir.”Now I know that cop wasn’t anywhere I could
see, so I asked him where he was parked and when he told me, I spitted out
these words: “You mean to tell me that you followed me all the way out on
Chaparral Drive with your headlights out so you give me a ticket for not using
my turn signal at a dead end?”

He admitted that there had been a number of burglaries in
the neighborhood and I obviously wasn’t a suspect and let me go without a
ticket.Now let me say something
here.Yes, I was angry, but when the cop
came up to my door, I had turned on the dome light and had both hands in plain
sight on the steering wheel.Even though
my words were strong, I didn’t curse or use threatening words and I surely
didn’t act like I was going to get out and fight.

Another time I was standing on the overpass at Loop 201 and Texas
Avenue taking photographs.This was about 4 years after 9-11 and I saw a
Baytown cop car
fly by headed north and the officer was looking straight at me.I thought, “Oh boy, here goes.”At one time there was an old dairy at Airhart Drive and Texas Avenue and I
was documenting the area for ourbaytown.com, but I knew that I was going to be
accused of taking photos of Exxon for terrorist purposes.Such was the state of terror phobia in our
country at the time.

Sure enough, here he came and sure enough, he had his hand
on his gun and demanded I give him the camera.I told him there is “no law preventing anyone from taking a photograph
from a public road” and then what I was doing and handed him my card.He said, “This better check out!” and went
back to his patrol car.He was a younger
looking officer and after a minute, he drove off without even looking at me.

Again, I did not take an offensive posture or curse the
officer, I simply defused the situation without showing anger and nothing negative
happened.I actually laughed as he drove
off, thinking “hasn’t he seen Google Earth?”

I have a British friend who recently wrote and said the
Brits are “a bit worried over the demonstrations in America”.I told her to forget it.When the hipness of it wears off, the
majority of people will find some other cause to get excited about.The bottom line here is that if you do not do
anything illegal or provoke a cop, 99.99% of the time, you are going to have a
positive experience with the police department.If you fall into that .01%, good luck.You’re going to need it.